White Sox excited about No. 3 pick in draft

Scouting director Laumann says interviews have begun, preparation set to kick into high gear

January 26, 2014|By Colleen Kane, Tribune reporter

White Sox fans will wait have to wait until June to find out what one of the biggest silver linings to a 99-loss season will look like, but Doug Laumann is among those putting in the work to make sure it's bright.

The Sox's director of amateur scouting was part of a SoxFest seminar Sunday detailing player development and the major league draft, in which the Sox will have the No. 3 pick this year.

Laumann said the Sox already have conducted interviews with three potential picks to better evaluate what they will be getting off the field, with more interviews to come. Their preparation will kick into high gear next month when college and high school games begin.

"We feel like we're going to be able to control our own destiny as far as we're going to have a lot of people who are going to be able to see a handful of guys we think are in contention for that pick," Laumann said. "We've still got to be diligent about making sure we prepare for anything that might happen. We can't just sit here and say, 'OK, it's going to be one of these three' in January, because there's injuries, there are players who do become a lot better than what we thought they were going in. We'll prepare the same way. We'll just hopefully get a better pick."

The Sox haven't had a top-five pick since Alex Fernandez was selected fourth in 1990, and this will be the club's highest pick since it took current assistant hitting coach Harold Baines first in 1977.

Laumann said he believes this year's draft is deeper than in 2013, which he thought was one of the weakest of the last couple of decades, but said it's not necessarily great. He said it appears to be high-school dominated.

This year's favorite to be the top pick is North Carolina State left-handed pitcher Carlos Rodon, and Laumann said he doesn't think there's much of a chance that Rodon will drop to third.

"If he does, it would probably be under the circumstance that would probably make us question why he went there as well," Laumann said. "Then again, there's a lot of baseball between now and then, so who knows?"

The next six prospects, according to MLB.com and Baseball America, are East Carolina right-hander Jeff Hoffman, Texas high school right-hander Tyler Kolek, North Carolina State shortstop Trea Turner, California high school outfielder/catcher Alex Jackson and shortstop Jacob Gatewood and Vanderbilt right-hander Tyler Beede.

"And we'll be picking earlier in the second round too," assistant general manager Buddy Bell said. "There's a lot of really good reasons to like where we are now. You don't like how we got there, but we feel really fortunate where we're at."

Extra innings: Manager Robin Ventura said during a seminar Sunday that the Sox may not announce a closer until the season begins, wondering aloud why the team would give opponents that information. … Sox slugger Adam Dunn didn't participate in his two planned seminars over the weekend, though he was on hand to sign autographs. A Sox spokesman said he wasn't feeling well Saturday.